Comments on: Encountering the Realhttp://blog.coas.missouri.edu/maa/?p=42
from the MU Museum of Art and ArchaeologySat, 03 May 2014 16:00:55 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1By: W. Arthur Mehrhoff, Ph.D.http://blog.coas.missouri.edu/maa/?p=42&cpage=1#comment-37
W. Arthur Mehrhoff, Ph.D.Fri, 09 May 2008 17:11:22 +0000http://maa.missouri.edu/blog/?p=42#comment-37There is a thought-provoking blog in Smithsonian’s Eye Level entitled “Seeing Things” (http://eyelevel.si.edu/2008/01/seeing-things-1.html) that I strongly recommend for your consideration. It addresses many of the above issues but also offers an interesting window into the meanings of the new information technologies for the upcoming generation that I think we need to seriously keep in mind.
]]>By: W. Arthur Mehrhoff, Ph.D.http://blog.coas.missouri.edu/maa/?p=42&cpage=1#comment-27
W. Arthur Mehrhoff, Ph.D.Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:13:41 +0000http://maa.missouri.edu/blog/?p=42#comment-27In addition to the experience of Dr. Wilson’s class, two other Museum audiences talked with me about the value on encountering the real object in a positive place supported by thoughtful scholarship. Dr. Karen Onofrio brought her Artistic Anatomy course from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute to the Museum for their final class. Dr. Onofrio is both a registered nurse and a distinguished artist, so she brought a fascinating perspective to the works in our collection that helped all of us “see” them in new ways. One student commented that “I’m seeing things I never saw before” such as the very light perspective grid embedded in some Renaissance paintings as well as the play of light on some of our plaster casts and other sculptures. Others commented on the benefits of being able to walk around three-dimensional works and see “anatomical cues” missing from text photos.
Members of the Fortnightly Club also shared their thoughts with me about what makes a museum experience so unique and valuable. For many of them, it was the ability to view works in a gallery context and see additional dimensions such as a richly gilded frame for a Baroque painting or experiencing three-dimensional sculptural works, along with the ability to ask questions of Curator of European and American Art Dr. Mary Pixley, that significantly deepened their appreciation for the Museum’s work of collecting, curating, and communicating. While information technology receives widespread acclaim for making us more ‘interactive’, these museum-goers suggested that Encountering the Real is the most interactive thing we can possibly do.
]]>By: Ann Mehrhttp://blog.coas.missouri.edu/maa/?p=42&cpage=1#comment-23
Ann MehrFri, 02 Nov 2007 03:03:29 +0000http://maa.missouri.edu/blog/?p=42#comment-23Allowed them to get real AND get real SMART!

Excellent artlcle. I would encourage professors and teachers within a half mile of MUMAA to walk on over and include the study of actual art and artifacts in their courses of study. When viewing an actual artifact we experience TRUTH and the intellectual interaction with time, space, materials and culture. It is IMMEDIATE personal response. Not mediated by scholarship, words, point of view, or lens of another.

My nephew (student at KU) sent me this.

About the information age:
I read a synopsis of this book called Immortal Game: A History of
Chess that said,

“We face in our modern, splintered world not only a crisis in
education, but more pointedly a crisis of understanding– of thought
and of willingness to engage in thought. We live in an age where the
intellectual challenges are unprecedented; just to be an effective
consumer one has to be able to navigate a hundred half-truths and
advertising tricks every day. Ironically, in our information age,
truth is harder to come by because it is so surrounded by facts, slick
presentations, and tools of distraction.

One common response to our splintered, postmodern, slippery-truth age
is not to think but to instead fall back on a fixed set of beliefs, a
strict ideology. In consequence, we have–inside the United States and
worldwide– a growing schism between enlightened, skeptical, thinking
individuals and close-minded, fundamentalist ideologues. We are also
literally in a war that is rooted in these differences.

…We must also address the underlying schism. The single greatest
danger to ourselves and future generations is to stop thinking, and it
behooves us to do anything we can to encourage spinning, skeptical
minds. To do this, we will need powerful thought tools like chess that
help our minds expand, grow comfortable with abstraction, and learn to
navigate complex systems.”